Box score

One last tomato can laid to waste in front of an adoring crowd, the Kansas University basketball team looked ready for the challenge of stepping into the ring with another highly ranked national-championship contender.

In playing outrageously good defense in the first half and sharing the ball so unselfishly all the way, Kansas had no trouble burying Richmond, 87-59, Tuesday night in Allen Fieldhouse.

Afterward, nobody on the winning side had any illusions as to the enormity of the next challenge.

“We’ve done a good job holding serve at home and playing with energy,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “Now we’ll find out how good we are, though. Let’s be serious: The season starts Saturday.”

In Columbus, a main event that features No. 9 Kansas against a No. 7 Buckeyes squad seeking to avenge losses from a season ago in Allen Fieldhouse and in the Final Four in New Orleans, where giant rats ran around the press room like they owned the place.

Senior point guard Elijah Johnson, who left 16,300 tongues hanging with a wicked cross-over dribble that resulted in him setting up freshman Perry Ellis for an easy bucket, knows Kansas can’t prove itself without getting the job done away from the nation’s most significant homecourt advantage.

“I feel like that’s the only thing we haven't done,” Johnson said. “We've played on a neutral floor. We've played at home. We've played great shooting teams. We've played good driving teams. I feel like the only thing we haven't done is go to somebody else's house and try to bring the pain.”

Richmond knows all about the pain Johnson referenced. Peter Parker would have had trouble scoring for the Spiders the way mobile 7-footer Jeff Withey, his eyes never losing the ball, his arms spanning the globe, made the lane a don’t-even-think-about-it zone.

Stat of the day, even better than Kansas going on an 18-0 run that spanned eight minutes and 16 seconds: Richmond made three shots inside the three-point line in the first half. That’s three two-point field goals in 20 minutes, which translates to one dusted spot on the Withey family trophy case for national defensive player of the year honors.

How Withey’s defense and the team’s terrific ball movement at the other end withstand the hostility brought by the 19,200 spectators who will pack the Schottenstein Center will be revealed Saturday.

Regardless of the outcome, there is a great deal to like about the latest Kansas top 10 basketball team. For one, it seems drama-free. No bad body language. Nobody seeming to play favorites. No glory hogs. No ballhogs. Nobody comes off as if he is forcing the right words out of his mouth when saying nice things about a teammate.

When the team’s best player has an ego unaltered by the constant worship thrown the way of college basketball stars, that doesn’t hurt in developing strong team chemistry. When the best player so rapidly and constantly improves during his senior season, that challenges teammates to keep pace. Withey’s confidence is soaring and that of opponents withers at the sight of him.

Self sounds confident about his team, but not all of his curiosity about it has been satisfied.

“Now we can go up there and hopefully take a real enthusiastic team up there, hunker down, see how tough we are and find out a lot about ourselves,” Self said. “... We need to have a good three days of preparation and go up there feeling good about ourselves, but understanding that this is going to be a true test of where we are right now. Right now, even though we played better, I still don’t know. This will clear some things up for us.”

Withey will bring the same quick feet and long reach to Columbus. The same starting five — one remarkably talented freshmen and four seniors — will be called onto the floor before the opening tip.

How will the Jayhawks handle the hostility?

“Our guys have so much confidence playing at home, but to me it’s obviously much tougher on the road,” Self said. “You don’t play at home during the NCAA Tournament, so we need to figure out how to do it.”

Tipoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. Three days before Christmas, for a two-hour window, don’t expect long lines at the stores in Lawrence.

Biggest thing that gives me hope is the advantage at head coach. It's not like Matta is a bad coach, I think OSU has been one of the top ranked defensive teams most of his season there, he did a great job at Xavier, he's taken them to multiple final fours in a pretty short stint as HC. Still, I do think KU has a nice edge in the coaching category.

The tougher the schedule the better prepared they will be in March. Last year proved it. We'll see just how gritty this bunch will be when March rolls around. There's potential, no doubt, but potential doesn't win championships.

I will also be attending the game. KU Fan, living in Columbus. I don't know right now if it's unfortunate or not that Christmas falls after this game. Have to imagine a lot of co-workers are thinking the same thing.

Peter Parker would have had trouble scoring for the Spiders the way mobile 7-footer Jeff Withey, his eyes never losing the ball, his arms spanning the globe, made the lane a don’t-even-think-about-it zone.... Keegan on a roll.... A Kaiser roll.... Sorry, couldn't help myself

Totally true..there is a wealth of great architecture in Columbus. In fact, Columbus may have the most architecturally unique collection of firehouses in America. In the 70's and 80's, it was the "in thing" for renowned architects to design and build a Columbus firehouse!!.
{PS. I tried but they just wouldn't accept my 50'-0" Jayhawk Hose Tower!!]

The accumulative record of Colorado, Belmont and Richmond prior to their meetings with Kansas were 25-5. I know it's early in the season but these three teams are expected to contend for their league championships.

These facts make the results posted by the Jayhawks even more stunning than the final scores!!

It's great, it just has me that much more worried about the OSU game though. Not because KU hasn't shown themselves as being a great team, but because cbb is a fickle game and often the hungriest team wins. OSU wants that win really bad right now to get the taste of the Duke loss out of their mouths as well as to get a quality win after playing soft competition for the past couple weeks. The good news is what KU did to those 3 teams they did with great fundamental basketball, not with just hot shooting or lots of turnovers by the other team. Before this stretch I was afraid of a 20 pt OSU win, now I feel like this team is playing well enough to go into anyone else's gym and give them a battle. Is BMac ready to step up and put up 25 pts against a tough defense if the team is stalling on offense?

Talking about hunger, OSU has the taste of a couple losses from last year to get out of their mouths (2 of my favorite 2011-12 wins). That being said, I hated to see KU lose to uk and duke last year, but it was a blessing in disguise. If they lose to the Buckeyes this weekend, perhaps we can look back on it and the MSU loss as just that, come March.

I'll tell you this, HCBS has done just what Doug Gottlieb described on 810 the other week. He has built the perfect cbb program for the 21st century; one that has talented and disciplined players ready to step into their roles when the opportunity arises. After witnessing last year and now this year, after fearing that both years were going to be "down" years, I believe I am spoiled. Bill will never experience a "down" year at KU. Mind you, when I say "down" year, I mean something like spending a good portion of the year outside the top 25, not competing for the league championship, or not making the tourney. It's funny, we think of any one of those three concepts as unheard of, but every other top program has experienced at least two of those scenarios in the past 10 years.We haven't experienced ANY of the 3! Thanks Coach Self!

Watching UNC tumble @UT tonight drives that one home. For all the advantages it seems like Roy has recruiting at UNC, ESPN highlighting them on TV every chance, making a huge deal about the Duke rivalry, having guys like Barnes, McAdoo, Hensen, Hansborough, several others I can't think of at the moment that have either stuck around an extra year when they could have cashed in, or been willing to play limited minutes off the bench when they could have had huge minutes at other respectable programs, even with what seems like a lot of advantages Self and KU have been THE model of consistency in cbb.

Yes, revenge is on OSU's mind, I just want to see the Jayhawks play like they are capable, a loss doesn't change how good the team is. As far as rankings and seedings go it could be a big deal. The OSU win last year definitely helped, winning the B12 outright with BU and MU having big years last year helped. KU doesn't have great opportunities after this game with only Okie St left as a ranked opponent.

I think OSU wins in a nail-biter like our loss to Duke in Maui last year. I'll say Ohio State 68 Kansas 65. I like Craft to be able to penetrate and kick out to Thomas for 3. I'm afraid that we're due a poor offensive game. Some of our recent exploding scores have just been due to the size of Withey where I don't think we'll have that great of an advantage on Sat.

I'm worried about when Elijah won't be in the game for us. We just have to survive when he's on the bench, and he must stay out of foul trouble. Expect Elijah and Craft to both play about 36-38 minutes.

Do you remember that he called the Final Four game last year? Ridiculous that they couldn't get somebody who wasn't an alum to call that game! I watched the game while playing a fundraiser poker tourney. It was one of the most memorable games I saw last year. We stopped the entire poker tournament the last 5-7 minutes of the game and everyone in the joint was going nuts! Loved it! After the game, I have to admit I didn't fair as well as KU, but I did make the final table!

Ralster and Drgnslayr both make great points. I can't help but be excited about AW3's recent good play (not counting the last game). With his size, speed, and ability to score from the outside, he could prove to be an adequate replacement in the unlikely case Releford gets in foul trouble, or we need to play small to defend OSU's outside scoring (and in the process, increase our outside firepower).

I don't know what it is exactly but there is something different about this team over past teams. It seems that the chemistry is particularly good. They all listen and know what their role is. If they continue to improve, things could get real interesting in March.

Executive Summary: Sound, mature team with a great 3-4 swing player in Deshaun Thomas and likely the best triad of trey shooters KU wills see this year--Thomas (41%), Smith (49%), and Scot (46%). They protect and steal and block a little too. Their disruption stat is a little over 1, which means they get after to you and are hard to rattle. Solid FT shooters at 71%. They average +4.2 rebounding edge and like to get on the offensive glass. Their PG, Aaron Craft isn't shooting well at 38% from the field and 33% from trey, but he's aggressive, annoying and guards hard. OSU relies on 20ppg from Thomas and then balanced scoring from 6 others. They start 6-8 at 4 and 5. Thomas is the handful.

How to Beat Them: Hold Thomas under his average, and deny the trey. Force them inside, and let Jeff reduce their FG percentage.

Can KU Stop Thomas?: Either Travis, Ben, or Kevin have their work cut out for them. Travis should start on him. But the 6-7 Thomas is exactly the kind of guy Travis has trouble with. Thomas has a short neck and 6-6 Travis has a long neck, so Thomas has more than an inch height advantage. Ben could quickly get in foul trouble guarding Thomas, but has the strength and bounce needed to match Thomas. We could also see Kevin, Jamari and Perry on him at times. I like guarding him by committee to keep Thomas out of his comfort zone.

Can KU Deny the Trey: 6-2 Craft is short and not hitting. EJ will be a tough guy for Craft to break out of his slump against. 6-4 Lenzelle Smith will really test Ben on both ends, but Ben under control could deny the trey to Smith and could challenge Smith at the other end. Scott is 6-1 and any of our perimeter guys but Naadir can deny him the trey.

Coaching: the last two years Vlad Matta has copied everything of Self's approach but Self's DNA helix. Expect more of the same, plus some muscle thrown in. But Self already has several schemes to throw at OSU and one will give an edge.

OSU plan of attack: Penetrate and kick out for treys. Take the ball at Withey, then dish, or kick out. Give KU a good roughing up immediately.

KU plan of attack: lock Thomas down, deny them their trey game, keep them off the offensive glass, and run and press and force the OSU bench onto the floor, where they become less efficient scoring. Maybe this is the game where Elijah takes Craft to the hole with two inches on him.

Forecast: Scary to say of KU's first road test, but KU by 10, because KU should be able to take away their trey game, KU should be due from trey, and Jeff should reduce their FG% inside. Also, OSU's only sizeable bigs are wide body Ravenel and 6-11 Williams, neither of whom play more than 18 mpg.

Afterthought: Self is right; this is KU's first real test. Transition every chance, but know OSU wants to slow it down and muddy it up.

Jaybate, I always love your insight and opinions. May I ask the following? Please rank our last three coaches (HCBS, Roy, and Larry Brown, for those of you who are really young) in the following two categories:
1. X's and O's and in-game management/adjustments, timeouts, etc....
2. Recruiting (with the consideration, I'm sure you'll make, that Coach Brown's tenure was much shorter and he didn't really have the opportunity to recruit following his NC.